Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Spendthrift Necromancer (19)

A vast forest spread out before him.

Woooo!

Kieek!

Cries echoed from far away.

Time to slaughter those gorilla bastards…….[Warning!][One outsider is currently present inside this Gate!]

“Hm?”

He wasn't particularly surprised.

Because when playing Gate Hunter, this was an event that occurred fairly often.‘Someone intruded.’Every time someone entered a Gate, it was divided into sectors.

Sector 1, Sector 2, Sector 3…….

It was easiest to think of each separated sector as a kind of parallel world containing the same boss.

The normal structure was for a party to enter one sector and clear it together.‘They probably slipped in with me before the sectors divided.’Nine times out of ten, it was an Assassin.

They possessed Stealth skills and were experts at hiding.

The reason for entering this way was simple.‘Murder pays.’No matter how many ordinary monsters you hunted, you might get one piece of equipment at best.

But an Awakened?

Kill one and you could strip them from head to toe.

They'd probably be lower rank than the Assassin too, making them easy prey, and some bastards simply enjoyed killing people.

It was one of the main reasons Awakened in this game formed parties.

For Gates D-rank and below, each sector allowed a maximum of five entrants.

If five people formed a party and the party leader stood in front of the Gate, every party member received the entry message.

In other words, it prevented Assassins from slipping in beforehand.

Of course, the Association and government were sensitive about the problem too, so popular Gates usually had Awakened standing guard.‘But you can't stop someone who's truly determined.’Even against someone of the same level, Assassin stealth was difficult to detect.

To reliably catch intruders, the guard needed to be far higher level.

And there was no way that was easy.

The world was vast and there were many Gates.

From employment costs to the simple shortage of high-ranking Awakened.

Intrusion was fundamentally difficult to prevent.‘At least C-rank.’If the Assassin was D-rank or lower, getting out afterward became a problem.

Whether you cleared the Gate or exited from the midway zone, the Gate emitted light.

Basically announcing, we're coming out.

But then nobody appeared?

That meant an Assassin had killed everyone, used Stealth, and fled.

An investigation would begin immediately.

For D-rank, the risk of getting caught was very high.

Level 101 to 150.

Around that range, there were almost no skills capable of erasing traces.‘C-rank is different.’Level 151 to 250.

The range where someone firmly entered the middle ranks instead of remaining near the bottom.

Assassins learned their signature skill, Trace Erasure.

At that point, ordinary tools couldn't track an Assassin who had vanished.

He could roughly guess why this person had followed him in.

Entering a Gate alone?

Unless you had a death wish, that meant you were skilled, and that meant your equipment was good.

They probably wanted it.

Minwoo chuckled.

“I understand why you came…….”

But did this one know?

The number of Assassins he'd killed inside Gates already exceeded several thousand.

He was sickeningly experienced at dealing with them.[Using Summon Cedric(SSS)

!][Using Summon Skeleton(F)+9!]

After summoning the undead.[You consume Detection Potion(Highest-Grade)

!][Effect activates for one hour!][You consume Strength Enhancement Potion(Highest-Grade)

!][Strength increases by 50 for one hour!][Agility Enhancement…….]..

He consumed potions purchased from the auction house.

Now it was time to hunt the intruder.* * *Woooo!

Ooki! Ookii!

Huge gorillas and monkeys charged in excitement.

Yet their momentum was meaningless. The moment a small dagger swung, they instantly sprayed blood and died.

“Hmmm.”

As though she were having great fun.

The woman smiled while killing monsters.

Lee Seoyoon.

She was a highly skilled Assassin.

She had reached B-rank in Korea, a country known as weak in terms of Awakened.

And even among B-rank Awakened, she was on the higher end.Level 251 to 3

5

0.

The B-rank range.

And among them, she was in the low 300s.

She even had a title.

Dark Shadow.

A name given because she moved so elusively whenever she hunted.

Beautiful looks.

An intelligent and refined demeanor.

Her popularity was tremendous.

With a little exaggeration, she was comparable to the Sword Phoenix.

Behind the public image she maintained through frequent outside appearances, however, lurked a cold-blooded murderer.

Stab.

Kill.

Disassemble.

She enjoyed the act itself.

But monsters had grown boring.

She'd killed too many.‘People are different.’The thrill of cutting the tendons in someone's limbs and watching them crawl!

Her pupils contracted tightly as she recalled old memories.

It was a sensation impossible to understand without doing it yourself.

Like pouring soda directly into your veins.

That was why she'd always killed at least one person a month.

“Lately I've been too busy.”

She'd been unable to enjoy herself for a while because she'd been handling jobs assigned by the ‘organization.’

She had finally carved out time after a long while.

An E-rank Gate.

The perfect place to play with prey.

And she'd found suitable prey too.

Some middle-aged man entering a Gate alone.

If he was entering an E-rank Gate solo, he was probably around D-rank.

At most, maybe C-rank.

Even if he was B-rank, that was fine.

She was confident in her skills.

Since they weren't in a party, their spawn locations inside the Gate were randomized.

Still, neither side received some extreme advantage such as spawning right next to the midway zone.

By now, the warning message must have appeared, and he was probably desperately fighting through the path.

Praying he reached the midway zone first.

Then.[Humanoid Tracking(B)

activates!]

Her skill activated.

A signal that her prey was somewhere nearby.

She smiled and activated another skill.[Activating Shadow Concealment(B)

!][The skill may be canceled if you are attacked or collide with an object!]

Her body instantly turned blurry.

She hadn't activated the skill for a cautious ambush.

The level gap was overwhelming.

Unless the enemy was A-rank or higher, she had no reason to move carefully.

It was simply.‘I'll go scare him.’For pure enjoyment.

Usually, when she revealed herself right in front of someone, they'd shake so hard it looked like they were having a seizure.

The process of driving prey into terror.

That was why she'd come here herself.

Step.

Step.

Her body, hidden in darkness, seeped through the forest.

And when she finally found her prey.‘Huh?’Her eyes widened.

Because she saw something she'd never imagined.

A fallen group of gorillas.

That part wasn't strange.

But what had defeated them was a group of Skeletons.

Well over four hundred at a glance.‘A Necromancer?’He'd entered carrying only a sword, so she'd assumed he was a Swordsman.

An unexpected class.

And even more surprising.‘Wait…… Isn't that him?’The hottest super rookie in Korea right now!

Kim Minwoo.

There was only one reason she immediately thought of his name.

Every Skeleton was equipped.

And with gear easily worth hundreds of millions per unit.

If there had only been a few dozen, maybe.

But there was no Necromancer in Korea besides Kim Minwoo who armed hundreds of Skeletons like that.‘There! That's it!’Cedric.

The Skeleton introduced on his broadcast and featured in countless articles.

It was mixed in among the others like part of a set.

She'd only come here casually to play, yet unexpectedly landed a huge catch.

Like a cat looking at a mouse, her eyes filled with curiosity and sadism.

And the instant she stepped forward with excitement in her eyes.

Click.‘Hm?’[You stepped on an Explosive Shrapnel Trap.]

Booom!

A massive explosion erupted.* * *‘Found you.’Kim Minwoo's eyes gleamed.

Even after drinking a Highest-Grade Detection Potion, there was still a fundamental level gap.

It helped with detection, but spotting a stealthed Assassin approaching was still extremely difficult.

In the end, whether he found the Assassin before they got close would decide the fight.

If he failed, he'd get a dagger stabbed into the back of his head and die.

That was why he'd used traps.

A Rogue, an expert in finding and disarming traps, would be another matter.‘Assassins are weak against traps.’And he hadn't laid just one or two.

He'd used his Skeletons to cover the entire area around him.

Assassins fundamentally possessed many tracking skills such as Heat Detection and Humanoid Tracking.‘So they're bound to approach first.’Especially in low-rank Gates like this.

They weren't hunting monsters of the same level.

They were hunting someone far lower level.

Nine times out of ten, they'd lower their guard.

Their mindset would be, kill them quickly, strip the items, and leave.

On top of that, traps were expensive, so almost nobody would throw them around freely in a low-rank Gate just to prepare for an Assassin.‘They probably never imagined they'd step on one.’And once shrapnel from that kind of trap stuck to your body, there was another excellent effect.

It didn't come off easily.

Like how the Assassin before him was now sparkling all over.

With that, Stealth was useless.

He could see them perfectly now.

“Nice to meet you?”

“……

Ha.”

The Assassin scoffed in disbelief at his greeting.

When she raised her head, Minwoo's eyes widened in surprise.‘Huh?’A familiar woman.

He knew her very well.‘Lee Seoyoon?’She was one of the more famous villains in Gate Hunter.

A character who frequently appeared in media pretending to be a nice person while secretly being a psychopath.

If left alone, she continued growing all the way to S-rank and became a goddamn nuisance that interfered with game progression.‘Meeting her now?’Naturally, she was one of those characters players wanted to grind into dust.

The problem was that killing her in reality was difficult. She was famous enough that disposing of her was incredibly troublesome.

So if you were going to kill her, you had to do it during the random event when she appeared inside a Gate.

And there was a reason it was called random.

You never knew when she'd appear while hunting Awakened, or which Gate she'd show up in.

And he'd run into her right now?‘Fucking jackpot.’Then.

Lee Seoyoon's eyes turned vicious.

“Mr. Kim Minwoo, you've got quite the nerve, don't you? I thought you'd run, but instead you're laying traps everywhere.”

Poison dripped from the dagger in her hand.

“You've got guts too. Trying to jump me.”

“Ha…….”

Lee Seoyoon sneered in disbelief.

The level gap between them exceeded 200.

Talent or not, most people would turn and run without looking back against that kind of difference.

“Don't you know who I am? I'm fairly famous.”

“Let's see, around now…… you're what, some trash Level 300 Assassin?”

“In all my life, I've never met a lunatic like you.”